


Ianto Jones and the Nightmare Man

by A_space_gay



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Ianto POV, Light Horror, Psychological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:29:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29687439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_space_gay/pseuds/A_space_gay
Summary: Whilst the rest of Cardiff sleeps sound in their beds, something lurks in the shadows of the Torchwood hub.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Ianto Jones and the Nightmare Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short fic surrounding the idea of the Nightmare Man from the SJA and Ianto's character, there's not much of Jack in this but it clearly explores Ianto's feelings around Jack and their relationship.

The night had dragged its murky blanket over the city of Cardiff, shops were closed, lights were off and those who had them were cuddled close to their loved ones asleep or watching reality shows about fake people. 

But hidden deep below the city there was still one place with the hum of electric lights and a dull ache of silence long waiting to be broken; the Torchwood hub seemed as empty and as alien as ever. And in this unnaturally bright tiled room there were not two men as you would first suppose, but three.

In his chair, Ianto was drifting off ever so slightly; his eyes would blur the numbers on the screen in front of him, his head would feel heavy… and then he would snap back out of it. He found that hub was dark and eerily silent this time of night, when Gwen had returned to the comfort of Rhys and the space left by Toshiko and Owen was ever more present. 

In the back of his mind, he was somewhat aware of the sound of shuffling paper coming from Jack's office, however, this was usually an indication that his beloved was searching through memories of a time before him, photos of old weddings and reports of cases long dead. Jack thought he didn’t know how often he did this, or he tried to hide it from him so as to not stir up feelings that they would both rather ignore. Fortunately, Ianto wasn't the kind to get jealous over past lovers who had died before living memory, unfortunately, he felt a soul destroying dread that he would become one. 

He tried to push these thoughts from his mind, he  _ tried _ to focus on what he was typing up.

As the mist of sleep slowly pulled him under that was the thought that lingered in the back of his head and forced its claws into him. Then all of a sudden he found his feet sturdy in the land of nod, not that he knew this, and almost thought he heard a sinister chuckle from behind him.

He was still in the hub and it appeared as though he had just woken up in the same place he fell asleep a few seconds prior. He also seemed to have lost his blazer and was left with a waistcoat and pink shirt he didn't remember putting on that morning, but he accepted this, as you do in a dream. Looking around, the world seemed slightly hazier and slightly dimmer than before as though there was a mist surrounding him, but it was probably nothing, nothing he couldn’t just accept.

"Ianto, get in here!" He heard Jack shout from his office in the gruff tone that he had learned to love, seemingly calling him for something important.

Tentatively, he walked towards the door, seeing as he did that he had been right, and Jack had in front of him photos of hundreds of past lovers scattered across the table like playing cards. 

"Do you see it, Ianto?" Jack gestured to the desk.

"See what?"

"See what happens to all the people I love? Have I ever told you about Anne and Charlie?" He questioned, holding up a faded picture of a young couple who seemed enchanted with the camera. 

Ianto felt the familiar feeling of despair as the reality of Jack Harkness was made apparent to him once more, "no, you haven't."

"I've never mentioned them once, why would I? They're my past, they died more than 10 years ago and they promised to love me forever… funny how things work out."

The photo fell limply back to the desk, Charlie getting completely obscured by a postcard in a script that couldn't possibly be from earth. He almost thought he saw Jack smile, but he didn’t find it remotely funny, he found that it opened up a pit of dread inside of him.

What did Jack want from him, what was the point of proving to him what he already knew, that he was momentary, but a blip in the life of someone much grander than he could even comprehend. The endless history and future stretching around the man just proved that Ianto was doomed to never be loved properly, and that scared him. 

"You do love me, don't you Ianto? I see it in you," even though Jack wasn't looking he nodded softly, "loving me is like loving a sunset, it's gorgeous and just a little bit cheeky, but it won't ever be able to love you back." 

He felt his fear grow and his heart tear at the seams because it was true; "Why are you doing this Jack?" He demanded, as though it wasn't plainly obvious to him. He half remembered dreaming about this before, the situation that he dreaded the most out of any, the moment when Jack had finally gotten sick of leaving a trail of dead meaningless lovers behind and decided to move on from him.

In this world, Ianto was merely an inconvenience in a suit.

"I will never be able to love you, you make me coffee and you're a good shag, but don't you think any one of these people offered a thousand times more?"

The volume of his voice was suddenly piercing, and Ianto was frozen.

"Are you scared of ending up like them? Are you idiotic enough to think that you could mean anything to me when I have lived enough to become a god!?"

“Jack, you’re not-”   
“I’m not what?” he smirked, cutting through Ianto’s attempt at words as though he was nothing, he was nothing and Jack was everything.    
“I’m not being truthful? I’m not… thinking straight? I’m not myself? Look inside yourself Ianto and ask if any of those seem right to you. You knew this day was coming, you knew the first time you held me dying in your arms, the first time you kissed me, the first time you woke up to see I was gone. You knew then and thousands of times after that that I am too big for you and like the sun I will burn through you and still live to see millions of years.”   
This wasn’t right, something wasn’t right but the feelings of shame and angst were chaining his feet to the floor, he couldn't move, he couldn’t breathe; Ianto was left listening to the words that Jack was spitting at him that he had tried to ignore for so long now. 

“You will die Ianto, you’re only 25 and you will die and I will forget you, do you hear me!?”

He heard him, he heard him and he felt as though his whole body would disintegrate, as though he would never stop hearing him. 

But then…

Then he heard something else.

Something faint and so chilling to the core that his guts twisted themselves into knots.

He heard laughter, he had forgotten it before but now he recognised it from last night and two nights ago and minutes ago on the floor of the hub. And it was coming from the shadow.

Something in him managed to break free of the painful spell that ‘Jack’ had been casting on him, just enough to realise he was in danger. 

"Who are you? Come out!" He yelled, drawing his gun from its holster and ignoring the fact that Jack didn't flinch. 

But the laughter only grew, a cruel chant from every shadow, the impossible amount of shadows. Then one spindly leg protruded from the darkness, tipped with an impossibly pointed shoe in the deepest black so that it was almost indistinguishable from the rest. He almost dropped his weapon in fear when he saw what was next, none of his torchwood training could prepare him for such a dreamlike nightmare. A ghastly white face, comically bright yet the perfect shade of death and despair, hollowed eyes painted so dark that he felt as though he may fall into them. The laughter animated from a mouth so wide it looked like it had been zipped open across the creature's face, revealing his slightly pointed and decaying teeth that oozed a sense of rotting fear.

"Ianto Jones," the sing-song voice called out through the insoluble space, rattling around his head like the sound of every evil thing all at once and echoing as though he was so completely alone, and he was so very completely alone.

"I delight in your fear Ianto Jones, you fear that you are nothing to him more than anything you have ever faced."

Jack smiled back at the creature, his perfect smile being distorted by its stench of fright, forcing Ianto to turn away. "I said who are you!"

"Oh he doesn't know, the man from torchwood doesn't know who I am," the nasal voice pierced his skin with its glee, "I am the nightmare man. And yours are delicious. So much horror and death, so many lost, and yet, what you fear most is worse than any monster."

The rotting smile was so repugnant that Ianto almost couldn’t bring himself to return his gaze, but he had to, he had to escape this… this thing. “If this is a nightmare then I can just wake up.” He announced, hoping to God that it was true but already feeling himself being pulled deeper and deeper. The fear was anchoring him, the darkness and the horror and the pit in his stomach that was playing Jack’s words over and over again like a stuck record. 

“Oh no Ianto, your fear is mine, and there is so much of it to feed on” that laughter again, with the texture of curdled milk penetrating every word, “your fear will make me strong enough to enter your world, and then I will feed on his fear too.” The spindly finger pointed at Jack accusingly but with such menace that Ianto’s knees trembled.    
“You cannot imagine how much fear he has and I will drown him in it, Ianto Jones, because you taste so… delectable.”

The bullet passed through him without even grazing, as though he wasn’t there; the nightmare man shook his head.

It almost looked as though the shadow was closing in on him, him and jack and the nightmare man who was everywhere.

“I have my claws in you,” the voice was everywhere, the drawling voice dancing through each vowel and surrounding him in the office with too much space and this not-Jack who was staring at him with malice and just a hint of the real Jack’s disdain. “I will bleed. You. dry.”

The gunshots did nothing to stop the ever growing aching emptiness of the room and did nothing to stop the echoing laughter or destroy the looming visage of the ghostly figure.

  
“See Ianto, now you can spend eternity with me, me and all of my lovers who are all just pictures in a box.”

“I am the nightmare man-”   
“You are just a tea boy, how could you even become a scratch on me, you’re nothing!   
“You will be here forever Ianto Jones.”   
“You want me so badly and it’s pathetic, you are pathetic Ianto.”   
The laughter, the laughter again, and every word dripping like poison as it surrounded him in a cage of his very worst nightmares. He was right, nothing he had faced or would come to face scared him as badly, and now because of him everyone else was in danger, Jack was in danger. And there was nothing he could do but crouch in the every approaching darkness, shielding himself from the laughter and the pain and the never ending fear of his own body lifeless and unloved, so replaceable, so damaging. 

He was a parasite, jumping onto Jack’s life to feed on what little he could gain and die without leaving a mark, feeding the nightmare man to trap everyone he loved so foolishly in the same hell he found himself in. Alone in a populated room.

“I can never love you, I will never love you, you are NOTHING!”

The final word to pierce his ears echoed in his mind as the light began to stream through his eyes, blinking away the final remnants of the prison in his mind only to feel Jack’s hand firmly on his back, lifting him up away from the desk where he had laid his head.    
“Jack…” he mumbled groggily as life came back to him, “what happened?”   
“The bastard didn’t last a second in my head, I may have a lot of fear but I’ve got even more positive memories to match, I don’t think he liked that very much.” Jack looked overly proud of himself and let out the biggest cheesiest grin and the puppy-eyed look on Ianto’s face.

He launched himself into Jack’s arms, he couldn’t help it, seeing him so full of light when he had been so twisted, so… “Thank you.” he mumbled into the overcoat, hiding his face in his shoulder and breathing in the delicious smell of the 51st century. 

It seemed the best decision to lock up and go, it wasn’t as though either of them would be getting a good night's sleep any time soon anyway. As they walked down the docks the light from the moon reflected on the rippled water and Ianto couldn’t help but notice how real and welcoming the light of the moon looked when all you were used to was the harsh stare of 100 Watts. “So, what did you dream about?” Jack asked tentatively, looking almost shy (which was a rare occurrence for him).

“Oh, just the usual, Daleks, weevils, the odd death of a loved one,” Ianto muttered in what should have been a slightly humorous tone but one that fell flat under the weight of the truth. 

Jack nodded and didn’t say another word as they walked aimlessly in the general direction of someone’s home, the nightmare man hadn't been one for keeping secrets.

Around them were only dark windows, each containing the feeling of those sound asleep in their beds, curled up with stuffed animals and partners and lovers, softly dreaming of fantastical things and of a life well lived. 


End file.
